Latest antics by Anonymous — Vatican and Panda Security

Anonymous has been at it again. This time in revenge for recent arrests. And while they were at it, they hit the Vatican too.

Following Tuesday's arrest of members of the LulzSec collective, the hacktivist group, Anonymous has now attacked the anti-virus company Panda Security.

The arrests of six suspected members of Anonymous/LulzSec on Tuesday in the UK and US are reported to be the result of information handed over to the authorities by one of their leaders, Hector Xavier Monsegur, also known as Sabu, who had apparently been acting as a mole for the authorities last year.

RT advised that following the arrests, Anonymous posted on its Twitter feed: “LulzSec was a group, but Anonymous is a movement. Groups come and go, ideas remain.”

The online assault attacked 25 websites belonging to the security company on Wednesday Night, plastering the websites with messages such as "Love to LulzSec/Antisec fallen friends". The group also took emails, passwords and user names of over 100 Panda Security employees, which they subsequently posted on line.

The hacktivists claim that Panda Security was involved in the arrests of 25 people in Spain and Latin America in February, and they are accusing them of snitching to law enforcement organisations in exchange for money.

These allegations have been denied by Panda Security who released a statement saying that the hackers had not "breached their internal network". They said that no customer data had been tampered with.

In another, less sacred attack, hackers from the Italian branch of Anonymous attacked the Vatican's website on Wednesday. They were protesting against the Roman Catholic's controversial history, scandals, conservative doctrines and liturgies.

The Vatican's website was unavailable for hours and a Vatican spokesman said he could not confirm that the attack was the work of the hacktivists, but did say that technicians were working to get it back up.

"Anonymous has decided to put your site under siege in response to your doctrine, liturgy and the absurd and anachronistic rules that your profit-making organization spreads around the world," a statement published on the Italian website of the Anonymous group read.

In a statement on Pastebin, the hacktivists have accused the Catholic church of a catalogue of crimes:

"You have burned books of immense historical and literary value, you barbarously executed your fiercest detractors and critics over the centuries, have denied universally deemed valid or plausible theories, have led the unwary to pay to get access to paradise with the sale of indulgences," reads the statement

"Italy has been forced to tolerate your daily interference in the public and social life," the statement continues. "You are bound to the past, you are the last bulwark of an era that is gone and luckily will not repeat again."

This latest attack on the Vatican (Holy See) website leads a warning of a "storm" to come during March.

The latest tweets read: “Trust us. You think you've seen the full muscles of #Anonymous up to now? Nah, you ain't seen NOTHING yet. Get ready. #March2012.”